


What We Deserve

by imunbreakabledude



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Catharsis, F/F, Hate Sex, Hurt/Comfort, In a way, Knifeplay, Light Masochism, Post-Episode: s03e05 Are You From Pinner?, Rough Sex, Smut, Soft feelings, it's villaneve hate sex, maybe? - Freeform, sorry the summary is bad but, there's a part two now which is:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:20:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24065716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imunbreakabledude/pseuds/imunbreakabledude
Summary: Villanelle tries. “Why did you ask me to meet?”“It was time.”“For what?”“For you to get what you deserve.”---Or, what if Eve asked Villanelle to meet after returning from Russia.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 54
Kudos: 350





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Big spoilers for Killing Eve 3x04. Mild spoilers for the premise of 3x05, what we know about it before airing. Takes place after hypothetical episode five.
> 
> Thanks to Haley for the suggestion, and for beta reading.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justice, or something like it.

  
Villanelle steps off the platform at King’s Cross. This is where she is supposed to meet her real family, her real home.

It didn’t go well in Russia.

So when Eve sent her the message, it was perfect timing.

_I need to see you. Now._

Nothing more, except the number of the train Villanelle was to take, and the platform where she was to meet Eve.

She adjusts her black bomber jacket and scans the platform with trained eyes. No sign of those telltale dark curls amongst the crowd of commuters. Could it be a setup? MI6, Dasha, Konstantin – any number of people could have deceived her. There’s always someone waiting to betray her; it’s hardly a surprise at this point. It’s why she’s got the knife in her bag and the gun in her waistband. 

One hand reaches to hover over the grip of the pistol pressed against her back as she strides out into the center of the station, making herself more vulnerable to ambush. Where is Eve?

If this is indeed a setup, Villanelle won’t be surprised, but she will be disappointed. Bored. It’s not that she craves affection so much that she craves any deviation from the constant back-stabbing drudgery of life. It’s so predictable it makes her want to scream. So she does, loudly, in the middle of the station. A few commuters turn heads, but none slow their travels. Fucking predictable. Every one of them.

Then, as if cued by her scream, like the waters of the Red Sea, the crowd parts, to reveal her in all her glory.

Villanelle waves to Eve across the platform. Eve doesn’t return the gesture. But she’s smiling. When was the last time Eve smiled to see her? Villanelle can’t remember. She feels a rush in her muscles like a sugar high and runs to meet Eve.

Wordlessly, Eve turns and exits the station. Leads Villanelle to a hotel next door. To the elevator; evidently she’s already checked in. Villanelle adjusts the straps of her bag and steps into the tiny space with Eve.

So much they could get up to in this tiny space. Eve presses the button with a 4. Villanelle thinks of all she could accomplish in the time it takes to travel four stories. What destruction or creation… what amusement, what art. She can’t help but giggle to imagine it. Eve’s face remains placid, serious. 

When they reach the fourth floor, Eve exits, and Villanelle follows dutifully. Already, she has decided, this hotel is her new home. What is a home, anyway, but someplace she wants to be? Someplace with someone she cares about. The past week, in Russia, that wasn’t home. That was a place she used to exist, that had never suited her and never would. 

Eve walks a few doors down and opens a door before Villanelle can even note the number on it. Excitement flares in her chest. Has Eve been staying here long? Does she live here now? Honestly, this two-star hotel room is an upgrade from the shitty apartment Eve had before. 

She’s disappointed to find the room essentially untouched: covers unmussed, still smelling of whatever cheap mass cleaning products were used to freshen up between guests.

Eve waits for Villanelle to enter, then shuts the door, adding the extra latch. Is Eve really worried about someone breaking in? She ought to know she’s perfectly safe, with Villanelle here.

Eve turns to face Villanelle. Villanelle waits for her to say something. After all, it’s her turn. Villanelle has said plenty. Eve hasn’t said anything since Rome, excepting the text message inviting Villanelle to London, but that doesn’t really count. Her lips collided with Villanelle's on that bus, but they hadn’t formed a single real word. Villanelle speaks many languages, but it seems that Eve has lost all of hers, except the non-verbal.

Villanelle waits, and waits some more. Usually she’s great at waiting – she doesn’t _like_ it, but she knows when it’s worthwhile – but now. She can’t.

“Why am I here?” 

Eve inhales. “I could ask you the same thing.”

And so, she speaks. After a gunshot, six months, a buss, a kiss, a cake, another family lost. Eve speaks, and it’s a pointless one-liner out of a cheesy action movie.

Villanelle tries again. “Why did you ask me to meet?”

“It was time.”

“For what?”

“For you to get what you deserve.”

Eve reaches out towards Villanelle, like she’s done once before, but it feels different somehow. It’s not a gentle touch. Her hand wraps around the back of Villanelle’s neck. Fingers dig in, yank her in to Eve’s lips again. Just as sudden and forceful as the kiss on the bus, only this time Eve closes her eyes. This time, her lips part and her tongue attacks Villanelle madly.

Then Eve’s hands are in Villanelle’s hair. Undoing her bun, so her hair falls to her shoulders. _If you wanted me to wear it down, Eve, you could have just asked_ – is what Villanelle would say, if Eve were not furiously biting at her lips, preventing speech.

Villanelle runs her hands through Eve’s hair, playing with the texture. Trying to enjoy this moment that they’ve been waiting for; they’ve both been waiting for so long.

Lips free now; Eve’s mouth travels down Villanelle’s jaw, down her neck. Begins to suck. Villanelle gasps in pain. Wetness builds between her thighs as she thinks of being marked by Eve in yet another way. These hickeys will join a set with the scar on her torso, and the bruise over her eyebrow, which has only just faded.

When Eve hurts her, it’s not so predictable. Because Eve never hurts Villanelle when she ought to, when it makes _sense_. No, Eve’s modus operandi is the opposite. A tender moment on a bed in Paris met with a knife to the gut. A loving invitation in Rome met with a horrible betrayal. A kiss followed by a headbutt. Whenever Eve inflicts pain, it’s so idiotic as to be thrilling, so Villanelle has come to welcome it.

And yet this time, something seems off – so while Eve tugs the glossy black jacket from Villanelle’s shoulders, she uses the window to ask. “What have I done to deserve this?”

Eve’s hands on Villanelle’s shoulders now. Gripping her hard, so much that Villanelle feels fingernails digging into her through her shirt. A scoff. “You know.”

Villanelle _doesn’t_ know, but there’s hardly time to question it because suddenly face greets plaster as Eve throws her up against the wall. She laughs. Eve presses all of her weight into Villanelle’s back, so that the lined texture of the embossed wallpaper makes indentations in Villanelle’s cheek.

A tiny, barely audible ripping sound. Cool metal grazes Villanelle’s spine, raising goosebumps in its wake. The metal blade travels down Villanelle’s back as Eve cuts her shirt open – Eve stole the knife, what a sneak. But after Villanelle’s shirt and bra fall to the floor in shreds, as she cranes her neck over her shoulder she sees it’s not the same knife Villanelle had in her bag: Eve brought her own. Premeditation. 

The blade of the knife against her cheekbone prods Villanelle’s face back into the wall like a teacher’s pointer. Eve’s arm forms a bar across Villanelle’s shoulderblades, forcing her chest into the wall as well, compressing her breasts, making it hard to breathe.

“What’s this?” Something is lifted from Villanelle’s back. The gun. Eve has it now. A click of the safety coming off. Eve chuckles. 

Cold again, but this time not the long thin blade of the knife, but rather the small blunt end of the gun, pressed into Villanelle’s left shoulder. The same spot where she’d gotten Eve, once, in another lifetime. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Eve says, with a voice that’s not her own.

Chest compressed, gun in her back, Villanelle’s breathing shallows and speeds up. This seems to please Eve, for the gun disappears, but now the knife returns. The point dances lightly along the back of Villanelle’s neck; Eve sweeps Villanelle’s hair aside to facilitate whatever path she’s tracing, so the artist can view her canvas.

“Or perhaps we can recall a more recent memory,” Eve growls. Villanelle can feel the warm condensation of Eve’s breath against the back of her ear. The point of the knife has stopped, now, slightly off-center on the back of Villanelle’s neck. The touch is no longer light, it digs in, a prickle, growing less comfortable, until it pierces, and a warm trickle of blood drips down, winding around towards Villanelle’s collarbone.

“I ought to go all the way through,” Eve says. “As many times as you did to him.”

Villanelle swallows, careful, all too aware of the blade still poised close to her throat. “To who?”

“Oh, I see,” Eve chuckles. “Reminding me that you can still deceive. Still _got it_.”

Villanelle is quite aware at this point that she’s missing something, and also that any attempt to explain to Eve that she really has no idea what is going on will only further convince Eve of Villanelle’s guilt for some undetermined crime.

 _Maybe I did it,_ Villanelle thinks. _Whatever it is._ But there’s no way of knowing, since Eve isn’t in the mood to chat. She’s working the knife again, cutting off the rest of Villanelle’s clothes. A shame, since the outfit cost more than all the clothes in Eve’s entire closet, Villanelle’s sure – at least the jacket was spared (for now). 

Soon her lower half is nude as well, and Eve stands over the scraps, leveraging Villanelle harder against the hotel room wall. Naked. Unarmed. Pinned. For once, the odds are not stacked in Villanelle’s favor. Eve can do anything she wants, right now.

_Time for you to get what you deserve._

One arm with the knife, now resting harmless and flat against Villanelle’s shoulder, but still using body weight to keep her pinned to the wall. Meanwhile, Eve’s other hand establishes itself between Villanelle’s thighs. Exploratory at first, curious – important to get one’s bearings in a new environment. Villanelle shuffles her feet apart ever so slightly – hi-tops still on; the only bit of clothing left on her – in order to allow easier access to the space between her legs. 

Eve doesn’t seem to appreciate the gesture; to the contrary, it seems to make her angry, as she leans in harder. Her fingers slip into Villanelle’s folds, which are already plenty wet – whether that was Eve’s intent or not. 

Fingers pulling her folds open, roaming around her clit. Pinching, then two jab inside of Villanelle roughly. For someone who has never been with a woman – at least, that’s what Villanelle assumes, she knows Eve that well, doesn’t she? – Eve’s hand moves with remarkable confidence. Not confidence. Aggression. 

Then, Eve’s hands knotted into her hair, jerking back, wrenching her neck into an uncomfortable acute angle. “This is where we were headed all along,” Eve spits, as she pulls back on Villanelle’s hair enough to make her eyes water. “What you deserve for killing him. What I deserve for letting you. Two fucking pieces of work, that’s what we are. Good for nothing but wrecking each other and everyone else in our path.”

Him. Does this mean… Villanelle remembers what Konstantin told her, before, in Barcelona. _The mustache is gone?_ And Eve thinks it was her.

“You’re a monster,” Eve growls, while her fingers move in and out, building speed. “A beautiful fucking monster who destroys everything around you. Who seduced me and made me one, too.”

Villanelle could cry out. She could beg Eve to stop, she could assert her innocence. It’s an unusual feeling for her, a new experience to be accused of killing someone falsely. Not so much the assumption of guilt that bothers her, as the notion that she wouldn’t proudly take credit for what she’d done. 

And why would she plead innocent, when for the first time in her life, she is getting exactly what she deserves?

As if noting that Villanelle’s window for confession is up, Eve takes Villanelle by the hair once more and shoves her head forward into the wall again, hard enough that it will probably leave a raised lump, later.

People are so predictable. Wind them up and watch them march along the tabletop until they hit a wall or run out of steam. Not Eve. Eve is a freak of nature. She is what she calls Villanelle, perhaps: a beautiful monster? _Beautiful_ , certainly, that’s been obvious from the start. _Monster_ , Villanelle only started to believe recently. 

Villanelle moans into the wall while Eve fucks her, in and out. The blood on her collarbone is starting to dry, and the patch of wall in front of her is growing slick with condensation from her breath. With each pump of Eve’s arm, she’s pressed further up against the plaster. Compressed, little by little. Villanelle wonders if she will be physically smaller by the end of this. 

Maybe Eve is doing it for the wrong reason, but Villanelle _does_ deserve this. Deserves to be hurt by Eve in every way possible; fucked both literally and metaphorically, for all she’s been through. Let the others run through their betrayals, one by one, each in turn – Eve will never betray her. Not in the real way. She’ll punch and headbutt and scream and drag Villanelle to hell with her, but she will never leave. Not really. Not for good.

The knife returns to her shoulder, mirroring the fingers inside of her. Up, down, over the skin but then – digging in. A cut, a release. Villanelle cries out as Eve’s knife slices into her back, while her fingers curl forward inside, and Villanelle comes, hard. 

Eve’s hands disappear. Villanelle is no longer pinned, but stays pressed into the wall. It’s comforting, now. This wall is home. She breathes into it. Raises a hand to stroke it. The texture of the wallpaper is like a familial embrace, now. Blood leaves sticky trails down her back; she should deal with that at some point. She hears nothing but the echo of a gunshot, the rattle of a busy bus, her own cry of pain from nearly eight months ago, when a different knife entered her in a different spot in a different country. Another scar for the scrapbook.

When she finally manages to draw in a deep breath and peel herself from the safety of the wall, she turns to find Eve gone. The gun gone, too. All that remains to prove that Villanelle hasn’t merely been indulging in elaborate solo play (which she’s been known to do before) is the shredded pile of clothes at Villanelle’s feet.

The punishment fits the crime, or lack thereof.

This is what she deserves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heard that villaneve hate sex brings the girls to the yard, and... oop, accidentally empathized with Villanelle for the first time in my career
> 
> sorry about the angst not sorry about the kink!
> 
> speculate on a hopefully brighter reunion with me on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable) xo


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forgiveness, or something like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> didn't plan to write the first part, let alone a part two! y'all can thank Haley and Fixy for pushing me to add a resolution, and helping to brainstorm. 
> 
> Spoilers for 3x04 and 3x05 ahoy!

Villanelle has lived in this hotel room forever, she thinks.

At some point after uncoupling from the wall (though she can’t recall when), she tucked herself into bed. Now, as she lies underneath the duvet she can’t tell if she’s awake or asleep. After a few seconds of deliberation she decides she must be awake, obviously, because when she sleeps she doesn’t dream. At most some blurry figures, black and white, the sensation of a chase. But now, full-color scenes play in front of her eyelids in high definition.

An orphanage in flames.

_You are not child._

A country road; a pathetic dusty farm.

_You do not belong here._

A house, not a home, in flames.

_I need to see you. Now._

A button with a four that lights up when pressed.

_You’re a monster._

Villanelle used to see the world like dominoes. One falls and hits another which falls in turn. Cause and effect. So simple any baby could understand. She would mock philosophers and priests, anyone who tried to ascribe some greater meaning to it. Dominoes fall because of gravity. They fall because they knock each other down. People are the same. Pull a trigger, a body falls in a heap, and sets off the next shot. Not a matter of _if_ , but only a matter of _what order_. 

Now, it seems that the tiles that form Villanelle’s life are flipping and flopping of their own accord, with no regard for cause and effect. Her head pounds. She wants nothing more than sleep, but it doesn’t come. She scrunches her eyes shut furiously. The movie projector playing the last day’s greatest hits does not cease; it only grows brighter.

A knock at the door. Timid. She ignores it. Another knock. “Mrs. Polastri?” A pause. “Front desk services, I need to speak – may I come in?”

“Not Mrs.,” Villanelle groans. “I am a widow.”

The door opens. A trembling young man steps into the room and furrows his brow. “You’re not the same Eve Polastri who checked in…”

Villanelle sits up in bed, and the man yelps and covers his eyes at the sight of her bare chest. “Can I help you?”

“It’s time for your checkout,” he manages, peeking between his fingers. “The room was only paid for one night, so unless you’d like to extend…”

“What time is it?”

“Eleven o’clock.”

Villanelle rises from the bed, prompting another squeal from the concierge as the rest of her body comes into view. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a few bills. “There’s another night. And have room service bring me some sleeping pills.”

“We don’t have room service, ma’am.”

“Then you do it.”

The man looks down at the amount of money she gave him, counts it, then widens his eyes, and nods. Villanelle turns to climb back into her safe haven underneath the blanket. 

“Ma’am! Your back! What happened? Should I call a doctor?”

“No need,” Villanelle murmurs as she settles against the pillow. “It’s healing already.”

  
A few hours and a few pills later she falls asleep and the dreams stop.

When she wakes, she can’t be sure how much time has passed, but when she sees the hotel room around her again, it’s almost pitch black; no light creeps in around the cheap blinds. She doesn’t bother fumbling for the bedside lamp, and instead blindly reaches for the bottle of pills, pouring some into her hand before the unsolicited mental movie starts up again. How many will it take to buy a permanent reprieve from the waking dreams? 

Her morbid math is interrupted by a husky groan that seems to come from the wall itself. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

 _Thank you, Wall,_ she thinks. _We really bonded in a short time._

Then the light flicks on. Villanelle covers her eyes from the blinding fluorescent, then squints to see a blurry shadow with amazing hair standing over her.

Already the dreams are back. 

Villanelle raises the handful of pills to her mouth and chucks her head back, ready to swallow them dry, but then a hand is around her wrist. Pretty realistic for a dream.

“Don’t,” Eve says. “I want to talk.”

“Get out of my hotel room.”

“Not until we talk.”

“Don’t make me call the little boy who runs this place.”

“It’s booked under my name.”

“I paid for tonight.”

“If you want me to leave, you’ll have to get rid of me yourself.”

Eve waits. Villanelle tries for the pills again; Eve stops her again. In a flash, Villanelle is kneeling atop the bed, and has the knife – her own knife, this time – scooped from the nightstand, pressed against Eve’s throat.

“You keep pushing,” Villanelle says. “You want me to kill you, is that it? You don’t have the guts for suicide, so you want it to be my fault.”

“No,” Eve says, and as her larynx bobs with the speech, a thin line of blood appears on her throat. “But would it bother you?”

“Always looking for someone to blame.”

“You’re right.”

Villanelle wants to scream at Eve to get out. She wants to throw things, wants to shove Eve into the hallway and slam the door. Lock it tight. She wants to file a restraining order like a proper helpless victim. More than anything she wants to press her knife down just an inch and watch Eve’s blood spill, mingle with the stain of Villanelle’s blood from last night. She wants to watch Eve’s life drain away, watch her take her last mangled breath through her slit trachea. She wants to shoot Eve in the head and watch her die, then chop off her head and stuff it with garlic as an extra precaution. Never can be too careful when the dead keep returning to her. 

She takes in one last breath. One last inhale of the scent of Eve before ending it, but–

Eve bends her head into Villanelle’s lap and weeps.

It’s not a pretty picture. Villanelle is awkwardly half-squatted on top of the bed; Eve is bent at the waist at a forty-five degree angle to lay her head on top of Villanelle’s naked thighs.

Villanelle could yank Eve’s head up, grip the knife, flick the wrist, finish the job. But she’s distracted by Eve letting out a loud, snotty sob. 

_Stop that. I don’t like it._

Villanelle doesn’t know what else to do, so she maneuvers herself into a more comfortable sitting position, and lets Eve climb up onto the bed to curl up like a toddler, head still in Villanelle’s lap, and continues to bawl like a baby. 

Eve is allowed to be sad. Villanelle has never understood the rules of who is allowed to be sad and when, though it never seemed to include her.

 _Why are you crying?_ Villanelle leaves the question unasked, for she isn’t so foolish as to expect a satisfying answer. There exist good reasons to cry, of course: to get special treatment from men, to lull an enemy into a false sense of security, or to simply flush debris from one’s eye. But other people tend to cry for sillier reasons, and, Villanelle has learned over her twenty-six years of life, rarely even know why they do it themselves.

Villanelle plays with Eve’s hair. Takes one curl, then another. Soft, yet springy. Eve likes it. Or at least her crying slows, the sobs are more sporadic. Then just sniffs.

Over ten seconds since the last sob. It’s safe to ask now; Eve might give a real answer. “Are you going to leave again?” Villanelle asks.

“I know it wasn’t you,” Eve says. A helpful answer, to the wrong question. “I knew the whole time. Or some part of me did.”

Villanelle waits. Eve’s breathing is still rattly, though the tears have stopped. Villanelle’s hand moves from Eve’s hair to her back, tracing up and down, feeling the heaving of her lungs. 

Then, Eve sits up, and stares at Villanelle expectantly. 

“Are you waiting for me to forgive you?” Villanelle asks.

Eve lets out a short, deep chuckle. “I think you and I are past forgiveness.”

“Still, I will forgive you anyway.”

Eve leans back, knits her brows. Even though it’s not the time,Villanelle can’t help the tiny flicker of satisfaction in her gut, the pleasure she feels every time she surprises Eve. 

“I also lost family recently,” Villanelle explains. “I know they can make you do crazy things.”

Eve just stares. Villanelle knows what she is doing: she is looking for the lie. Eve always does this. What she doesn’t realize is that when she treats every word like a lie, it gives Villanelle no incentive whatsoever to tell the truth.

“I’m sorry,” Eve murmurs.

“Traditionally, people say that before being forgiven.”

“We’ve never been traditional.”

Eve’s hand reaches out to cup Villanelle’s chin. Villanelle doesn’t even register that she flinched away from the touch until she sees the concern on Eve’s face. “Do you want this?”

“Yes,” Villanelle says, swallowing the sense-memory. “Try again.”

The touch on her cheeks again. Villanelle has touched many people in her life and been touched by perhaps even more, but never like this. Never this softly.

Eve’s kissing her now. The kiss is different, too. No fight in this one. A surrender. A white flag might as well appear above her right now. Villanelle accepts this surrender and offers a peace treaty of her own. She walks herself forward with her arms on the bed, bending Eve back so her curls form an inky pool on the bedspread. 

Villanelle considers her options for a moment, with her knife still clutched in her right hand – she could get Eve back, and disrobe her in the same manner she’d done to Villanelle, eye for an eye, pants for pants. But instead she tosses her knife aside and unbuttons Eve’s slacks, easing them off her gently. For once in her life, Villanelle feels no urge to be petty, no desire for one-upmanship. 

Eve’s surrender leaves her limp on the bed, so Villanelle takes the lead in positioning them, spreading Eve’s legs and situating herself in between. A gentle exploratory touch with her hand, rocking her thumb back and forth across Eve’s clit until she feels wetness. Then, she replaces her hand with her mouth.

It’s bittersweet in more ways than one. For all the times Villanelle imagined tasting Eve (and she’d amassed quite an impressive catalogue of fantasies while masturbating), this is not one she anticipated. Throughout all the variant highs and lows, sweet and hateful, dominant and submissive scenarios she had conjured in the past to get herself off, none were this… anticlimactic. There was always a bang, a scream, a shot, a stab – something more like last night. A fireworks show of feeling to mark the finale of their flirtation. 

This doesn’t feel like an ending. Even as Villanelle’s tongue slides through Eve’s folds, even as she can feel the tension inside eve coiling up like a spring, it’s more prologue than epilogue. When Eve’s hips angle upwards, and Villanelle presses her tongue firmly against Eve’s clit as she rides through her orgasm, it’s less like a final fight scene, and more like the end of a trailer. An invitation to some movie, coming soon to theaters. One that Villanelle would like to go see.

Eve’s sighing with pleasure, but Villanelle can’t bask in the pride of a job well done. She only feels hollow, wondering what’s next. Eve reaches for her. A hand around her neck. Villanelle pulls her back up, and they’re entangled now, like they’ve always been, only now it’s physical. Now Villanelle can feel Eve’s heart beat through her neck as she grasps at the base of Eve’s skull, fingers wrapped up in her roots, pulling her closer for a kiss, which she strangely doesn’t tire of. Now, Eve holds Villanelle close, instead of pushing her away. 

Eve clutches Villanelle, but not commandingly, less to grasp and more… to _know_? Her fingers trace along Villanelle’s arms and shoulders, occasionally stopping for a moment, or pivoting on the spot – Villanelle can tell by the epicenters to which the tickles gravitate that Eve is counting her freckles and moles.

A bolt shoots down her spine as the edge of Eve’s finger runs up against the gash on her shoulder. It isn’t the pain that makes her gasp – Villanelle has a very high tolerance for pain. Something about the same hand that held the knife, now wearing a disguise of docility, edging up against the still-fresh wound. The paradox of it short-circuits Villanelle’s nervous system. Like rebooting a computer.

Now Eve’s holding her tight. Villanelle blinks, her chin pressed over Eve’s shoulder, staring blankly at the wall that was her prison last night. Is this supposed to make up for everything? And now Eve’s crying again. Villanelle wants to tell her to shut up, but her throat won’t cooperate. Only then does she realize the sobs are her own.

“I won’t leave,” Eve says, rubbing Villanelle’s back, safely below the wound. “I promise.”

Villanelle sniffs. She’s never felt an ounce of self-consciousness about bodily functions before, but this mucus running down her face is so pointless, and why can’t she control it? She squeezes her lids shut for a few seconds to clear the tears, while Eve hugs her close. A hug. Villanelle loves giving hugs. She can’t remember the last time she was on the receiving end of one like this. 

Eve releases her, lets her pull back. Looks Villanelle dead in the eyes, without blinking. “I won’t leave you. Never again. I’m here.”

Villanelle stares back. She looks for the lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay it's really done now seriously 😔
> 
> catch me breaking my own promises to myself and spending more time on fic than I should, on [tumblr](https://imunbreakabledude.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/not_breakable) xo


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